contessanally: New York: Design - MAD Museum - Harry Bertoia's Influential Studio Jewelry and Sound Sculpture Explored in Two Exhibitions

Photo Butcher Walsh - courtesy Museum of Arts and Design

"Harry Bertoia is a perfect subject for the Museum of Arts and Design. His prolific practice has pushed the boundaries of art, design, and craft. Whether it was kinetics in jewelry, the monotype as drawing, or the creation of a sound environment as an artwork, Bertoia worked across disciplines and scales fluidly and with inventiveness. The impact of his work is tremendous, and transcends specific art and design fields to influence architects and sculptors as readily as sound designers and musicians."

Shannon R. Stratton

MAD Museum - Harry Bertoia's Influential Studio Jewelry and Sound Sculpture explored in two exhibitions:

Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound

curated by MAD’s Chief Curator Shannon R. Stratton and Curatorial Assistant and Project Manager Sophia Merkin

Bent, Cast and Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia

curated by Shelley Selim, Jeanne and Ralph Graham Assistant Curator

At the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) two exhibitions focus on the prolific artist, designer, and sculptor Harry Bertoia (1915–1978), until September 25, that highlight the distinct practices that book-ended his illustrious career.

Above. Installation view of Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound. In the foreground the famous chairs by Bertoia for Knoll which are still in production today.

http://www.madmuseum.org/

Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound installation takes a close look at Bertoia's sounding sculptures. He began to create these as well as "Gongs" in the late 1960s during a quest to examine the relationship between sculpture and sound that would last the rest of his life. Collectively described as "Sonambient" these sculptures consist of bundles of metal rods that set off radiant tones when agitated by wind or human touch.

Photo and courtesy Beverly H. Twitchell

Harry Bertoia

Bertoia manipulating the tops of rods like cattails, using individual fingers to move specific rods, to create a complex sound in the Bertoia barn 1975.

Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound

Arri (Harry) Bertoia - Untitled – 1950s

monotype on rice paper

Inventory Lists – 1969

Bertoia often spoke of his monotypes as akin to a sketch, or notebook for his idea. In contrast, the sheets shown here are examples of Bertoia’s notes on the sounding sculptures he was making and selling: configuration, heights, diameters and materials.

Photo courtesy of Wright Auction House

Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound

Arri (Harry) Bertoia – Early Kinetic Sculpture – c. 1952

Bertoia experimented with kinetics in sculpture early in his career, starting with some jewelry. The forged and riveted brooch (c. 1949), above, is an early example of his interest in and subtle attention to movement. In the 1940s he also began producing platform sculptures, with forms that can be traced back to line qualities explored in his monotypes. Languid in their movement, these kinetic sculptures seem to anticipate the oscillations of the later sounding sculptures.

Photograph by Richard Goodbody

Bent, Cast and Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia Exhibition

Presented in conjunction with Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia's Environment for Sound exhbition, Bent Cast and Forged, displays Bertoia's jewelry, exploring his investigations of form and material during his early days as an artist and designer at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. It comprises jewelry works and monotype prints, and offers an early glimpse of a creative vision that would crystallize as his career matured.

Above. “Gong” Pendant, c. 1960s - silver. Pendant – 1960s – silver, gold, coral.

Harry Bertoia – Ornamental Centipede – brass -1942

In 1943, Bertoia left Cranbrook and moved to Venice, California, to collaborate with designer Charles Eames on a line of furniture. To fund the trip he sold a large portion of his metalwork and monotypes, and Ornamental Centipede was purchased by Cranbrook founders, George and Ellen Booth.